“Without doubt, one of the most important books of the last 50 years. I shall urge everyone I know who cares about life on earth, and the future of their children, and children’s children, to read it. . . . Steven Druker is a hero. He deserves at least a Nobel Prize.”

HBO’s new documentary, “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief,” debuted to a standing ovation at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Prior to the big event, the Church of Scientology took out full-page ads in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times claiming the documentary is filled with falsehoods…

Alex Malarkey spent two months in a coma and woke up paralyzed. But his description of what happened in between offered a compelling tale of life after death, including visions of angels and meeting Jesus. Published on 2010, “The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven” became a bestseller — one billed as a description of “miracles, angels, and life beyond this world”. But last week, following persistent rumors, Alex, now 16, revealed that the detail in the book was false: “I did not die. I did not go to Heaven. I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention…”

“As with heaven, there are various hell realms witnessed by near-death experiencers. We can even see many manifestations of hell right here in the physical realm. There are people in prison, in the Bahamas, in mental institutions, universities, skid row, palaces, crack houses, all kinds of life situations. While hell realms can be seen outside all around the world as a manifestation of an inner hell within humans, hell realms in the spirit world are an even greater manifestation of inner hell within humans. Near-death accounts show that the hell realms in the spirit world are actually the spiritual/mental manifestations of spiritual conditions that humans create within themselves while on Earth.”

Around the world and in the United States, where the faith was founded, the Mormon Church is grappling with a wave of doubt and disillusionment among members who encountered information on the Internet that sabotaged what they were taught about their faith…

Mormon leaders have acknowledged for the first time that the church’s founder and prophet, Joseph Smith, portrayed in church materials as a loyal partner to his loving spouse Emma, took as many as 40 wives, some already married and one only 14 years old…

For many in the United States, Columbus Day is just another holiday. It is a time to spend with family and friends, an opportunity to take a short vacation, an extra day of rest from a long work week, or it is the last chance for a barbecue before winter. But for others, it is a sharp and painful reminder that history has betrayed and forgotten the contributions of their people, the lives lost, and a rich culture that pre-dated colonization.

From the moment a sailor aboard the Pinta sighted land from the sea, on October 12, 1492, the course of indigenous history was forever changed. Upon landing on what is now the Bahamas, once known as Guanahani, Columbus encountered indigenous peoples of the Lucayan, Taíno or Arawak, nations. Peaceful and friendly, Columbus and his Spanish explorers manipulated their hospitality and mercilessly slaughtered, enslaved, and stole lands in the name of the Spanish crown. He wrote of them in his journal, “They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them”…

A Delaware pediatrician who is a recognized researcher in near-death experiences in children has been accused of holding his young daughter’s face under a faucet — an act he called waterboarding, according to officials — while the girl’s mother allegedly watched. Officials in Georgetown, Del., arrested Dr. Melvin Morse and his wife Pauline at their home on Monday and charged them with reckless endangerment, conspiracy and endangering the welfare of a child…

Excerpt: “Reverend Kaneda exorcised 25 spirits from Rumiko Takahashi. They came and went at the rate of several a week. All of them, after the wartime sailor, were ghosts of the tsunami. For Kaneda, the days followed a relentless routine. The telephone call from Rumiko would come in the early evening; at nine o’clock her fiancé would pull up in front of the temple and carry her out of the car. As many as three spirits would appear in a single session. Kaneda talked to each personality in turn, sometimes over several hours: he established their circumstances, calmed their fears and politely but firmly enjoined them to follow him towards the light. Kaneda’s wife would sit with Rumiko; sometimes other priests were present to join in with the prayers. In the early hours of the morning, Rumiko would be driven home. ‘Each time she would feel better, and go back to Sendai, and go to work,’ Kaneda told me. ‘But then after a few days, she’d be overwhelmed again.’ Out among the living, surrounded by the city, she would become conscious of the dead, a thousand importunate spirits pressing in on her and trying to get inside…”

“It’s about coming alive. It’s about waking up to grace. It’s about unconditional friendliness and infinite kindness to yourself. It’s about making it safe, finally safe for all of those unloved, un-met, unseen waves of the ocean of yourself to crawl out of the depths, out of the darkness, out of the corners and holes and crevices of experience and come into the light, blinking and full of wonder.

“It’s about giving birth to yourself, so that all thoughts are finally allowed to flood in, all sensations, all feelings, all sounds, all those waves that we used to label ‘dark’, or ‘evil’, or ‘negative’, or ‘dangerous’, or ‘sinful’ — fear, anger, boredom, doubt, confusion, frustration, helplessness — are finally allowed to come to rest, to breathe, to be fully themselves in the space that you are. They are not separate entities or enemies, they are intimate appearances of you, and so they cannot hurt you, even if they hurt, and this is what we forget sometimes in our rush to ‘fix’ or at least ‘normalise’ ourselves.

“Yes, all of those swirling, pulsating energies of that which we call ‘life’ are welcome in the unlimited room that you are, the vast Living Room in which all of creation sings and dances and paints itself into the ever-changing picture of this extraordinary moment…”

A feature film depicting the struggles of a compassionate twentysomething contending with some unexpected life developments while working as a supervisor at a home for at-risk teens. The film premiered at the 2013 SXSW Film Festival, where it won both the Grand Jury Narrative Feature Award and the Narrative Audience Award. Critical response to the film has been overwhelmingly positive, calling it “a roller coaster of every emotion, managing to be both heartwarming and heartrending at once”…

Barbara Harris Whitfield writes: “To wish all of you a wonderful new year, I am putting three of my Kindle books up for free on the weekend of December 28-30. The Natural Soul, Victim to Survivor and Thriver, and AFGEs are a free download on those dates…”

Most of you know that I have been teaching a series of NDE classes in Sedona. I’ve been at it for almost two years now. The classes grew out of a presentation I did in Sedona in 2012 called “How Near-Death Experiences Are Changing The World.” And that presentation, together with what we’ve been learning and exploring in our local classes eventually gave birth to “The Formula for Creating Heaven on Earth.” What follows is an example of the kind of fantastic material we are covering in our local classes…

A collection of reports that accuse Mother Teresa of failing to be the humanitarian saint she was widely perceived to be. The allegations include accepting money from corrupt sources, keeping secret bank accounts, misusing millions of dollars in donations (money that could have been used to alleviate poverty or improve the conditions of her hospices was used, instead, to open new convents, increase missionary work, and fund other Vatican projects), refusing to help the needy when they approached the sisters at the wrong time according to the prescribed schedule, discouraging sisters from seeking medical training to deal with the illnesses they encountered (with the justification that God empowers the weak and ignorant), the imposition of “unjust” punishments on sisters (such as being transferred away from their friends), and keeping sisters in check by prohibiting the reading of secular books and newspapers, and emphasizing obedience over independent thinking and problem-solving… This post also includes Time Magazine’s August 2007 article on “Mother Teresa’s Crisis of Faith.”

Esquire has published a must-read article about Dr. Eben Alexander, his near-death experience, and best-selling book, “Proof of Heaven.” Among other things, the author describes a series of malpractice lawsuits from Dr. Alexander’s past (including one where he falsified medical records), and a long string of inconsistencies in Alexander’s story…

A comprehensive look at the controversy that erupted from Esquire’s hard-hitting expose’ of Dr. Eben Alexander, including an NBC news report, a summary of the Esquire article, a video of the Dalai Lama and Dr. Alexander, a list of NDE-related networks that hosted conversations, comments from these networks, and a short list of take-aways for how to view this emotionally charged situation (and others like them)…

Based on the best selling book “Nosso Lar: An Account of Life in a Spirit Colony in the World of Spiritis” by medium Chico Xavier, “Astral City: A Spiritual Journey” tells the story of Andre Luiz, a successful doctor who experiences an enlightening spiritual awakening after his death. When he wakes up in the spiritual world, he embarks on a new journey of self-discovery and transformation, from his first days in a dimension of pain and suffering, until when he is rescued and taken to the spiritual Astral City. With magnificent art direction and special effects that have never been seen before in a Brazilian production, and featuring an amazing score by composer Philip Glass, the film brings to the screen what life is like at the Astral City that hovers in the upper layers of the Earth’s atmosphere…